Earby Chronicles

Earby Chronicles Edition 87 WINTER 2017 www.earbyhistory.co.uk SOCIETY AIMS: to raise awareness, LAUNCH OF NEW PUBLICATION “WISH YOU WERE foster an interest HERE—EARBY HOLIDAYS OF YESTERYEAR” and facilitate £1.50 research into the heritage of Earby & district including Thornton in Craven, Sough, Kelbrook, Harden, Hague and Salterforth. OFFICIALS Secretary: Margaret Brown Phone 01282 843932 Editor of Chronicles: Stephanie Carter Phone 01756 794099 Treasurer/ Archivist : Wendy Faulkner The Society’s latest publication, written by Phone 01282 863160 Stephanie Carter and generously spon- sored by cottages.com , was successfully Committee: launched at the Community Centre on Trevor Tattersall 30th September. Picnic snacks and lunch- Margaret Greenwood Steve Marshall es were provided by Just Ask Jess and Bob Abel enjoyed by our many supporters. Website: The book, costing £10, is available from www.earbyhistory.co. the Society or by post for £10 +£2.50 P&P uk from EDLHS, Lower Burnt Hill Farm, Skip- Email: ton Old Road, Colne BB8 7ER. info@earbyhistory .co.uk Our next publication will be on the history of Earby Prize Brass Band. Recent features Page 2 Centenary of Battle of Passchendaele, Jean Eccles & Dorothy MacInnes Page 7 Wash in Water from the Beck, Drought in Earby, Bob Abel & Peter Dawson £2.50 Page 11 Earby Station 1949-52 Final Part of Memoir, Rodney Hampson Members of 1 Society free Earby Chronicles CENTENARY OF THE BATTLE OF PASSCHENDAELE - THE THIRD BATTLE OF YPRES by Jean Eccles and Dorothy MacInnes. Our grandfather, Bertie Cowgill, of Earby, who was serving with the Northumber- land Fusiliers in WW1, was killed on 16th August 1917 in the Battle of Langemarck, during the Third Battle of Ypres. He has no known grave and his name is inscribed on the Tyne Cot Memorial, which commemorates nearly 35,000 servicemen from the United Kingdom and New Zealand, who died on the Ypres Salient, on and after the 16th August 1917 and whose graves are not known. The names of the 54,000 soldiers who were killed before 16th August 1917 are inscribed on the Menin Gate Memorial. In January 2017, we saw an advert by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission in the daily newspaper, for applications for tickets to the commemoration service for the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele and decided to apply. In March 2017 we received an email, saying that we had been successful in the ballot, and the event would take place on the 31st July 2017 at Tyne Cot Cemetery. We then had to arrange our own transport and accommodation, which didn’t look as though it would be too easy! Fortu- nately, we then saw another advert in the daily newspaper - this time by Leger Holidays - advertising a five day holiday, specifically covering the weekend of the commemoration service, so we decided to let Leger do all the hard work for us! We had numerous email updates over the next four months, which gave us confidence that everything was being very carefully planned and organised. We left Nelson early on Saturday, 29th July and drove to Dover, for our Channel crossing, and then through France and over the Belgian border, to a Best Western Hotel in Mouscron, Belgium. The following morning, after a good breakfast at the hotel, we began our tour, with Mark, our excellent Battlefield Guide, at the Passchendaele Memorial Mu- seum, Zonnebeke, on the outskirts of Ypres. There were special military displays taking place over the weekend and, in the museum was a recreation of a WW1 dugout. We then drove on to the Pilkem Ridge Battlefield and stopped at a Welsh Cemetery, where a plaque had just been unveiled to the Welsh poet, Ellis Humphrey Evans, who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Passchendaele. We visited the German Ceme- tery at Langemark and later stopped on the banks of the Steenbeke River, where Harry Patch, the “Last Fighting Tommy” who died in 2009, aged 111, had placed a memorial stone to his lost comrades, and this was particularly poignant as it was the area where the Northumberland Fusiliers had been in action, when our grandfather was killed. Our next stop was at Artillery Wood Cemetery, where there was a private ceremony taking place. A lady was commemorating the death of her grandfather, who had died one hundred years ago to that day. We were invited by the family to join them in the short service, which included the singing of “Guide me, O Thou Great Jehovah” (Cwm Rhondda) and “The Day Thou Gavest, Lord, Is Ended”, led by a lady with a beautiful soprano voice, and it was very moving indeed. From there, we went into Ypres and made our way to the Market Square, where there were very strict security regulations before entering. Every evening, at 8.00pm, at the Menin Gate, the Last Post Ceremony takes place, and has taken place every evening since 2nd July 1928, except for a few years during WWII, when Belgium was occupied by the Germans once again. 2 Earby Chronicles The Menin Gate Wreaths on the Stone of Remembrance Tyne Cot and at the Menin Gate Cross of Sacrifice Tyne Cot and Memorial Wall Tyne Cott 3 Earby Chronicles Only descendants of those named on the Menin Gate Memorial were able to obtain tickets for that ceremony, so we were watching on a large screen in the Market Square. We watched a procession of dignitaries: Royal British Legion Standard Bearers and the descendants of the WW1 soldiers, led by the Royal Highland Pipes and Drums, as they made their way to the Menin Gate. King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Theresa May attended the ceremony. After the Menin Gate ceremony, there was a break of about an hour, when the cafes in the square remained open and then, at sundown, a “multi-media commemorative event” began, telling the story of the First World War on the Ypres Salient, with particular focus on the Third Battle of Ypres, with projections on to the walls of the Cloth Hall, alongside live theatri- cal and musical performances, which included the National Youth Choir of Scotland; the Royal Marine Band, Plymouth; Helen Mirren; Alfie Boe; a specially adapted piece from “The War Horse” story, narrated by the author, Michael Morpurgo, and excerpts from “The Wip- ers Times”, introduced by Ian Hislop. The Royal visitors were also present for this event. The performance finished at 11.00pm, and we were back in our hotel by midnight. On Monday, 31st July, which was the anniversary of the first day of the Battle of Passchen- daele, which lasted for over one hundred days, the UK Government was hosting the commemoration service at the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Tyne Cot Cemetery. This is the largest CWGC cemetery in the world in terms of burials. There are 11,961 Com- monwealth servicemen buried there, of whom more than 8,300 remain unidentified. The site also contains the Tyne Cot Memorial, where our grandad’s name is recorded. We drove to a designated area for coaches, on the outskirts of Ypres, where we then caught a shuttle bus to the Passchendaele Memorial Museum Park at Zonnebeke, which we had visited the previous day. There we went into a large marquee, where we had to show our tickets and passports, and were electronically searched and fitted with a purple wristband. We were each given a bag containing various leaflets, badges, two crosses with poppies, to place wherever we wished in the cemetery, and a book containing the order of service giving all the hymns, speeches and information and photos about the Battle of Pass- chendaele. We then received another bag containing a snack - two breakfast bars, an ap- ple and a bottle of water and then queued for another shuttle bus to take us to Tyne Cot Cemetery. (No-one was allowed to make their own way to the cemetery.) We hadn’t been able to book seats for the service, so we knew we would have a long time to stand. Unfortunately, three weeks previously, Dorothy had a very bad attack of Labyrin- thitis - something she had never experienced before - and was still very unsteady on her feet. We positioned ourselves behind a half-empty block of seats and, as it got nearer to the service time, we were told we could use the remaining seats. Three bands were playing for the ceremony - The Royal Marines, the Plymouth Welsh Guards and the Central Band of the RAF. Prince Charles was in attendance, along with the Royals and Theresa May from the previous day. The service was very moving, with an in- troduction by Prince Charles, followed by music, hymns, poetry and prayers. Currently- serving military personnel read letters written by soldiers in the trenches and the readers had been specially selected to represent the nationalities or spoken tongue of those letter writers. The service began at 1.00pm and lasted about fifty minutes, followed by a fly-past by the Belgian Air Force. It was a lovely, sunny day, so we spent some time after the ceremony, looking at our gran- 4 Earby Chronicles dad’s name on the Memorial Wall, viewing other memorials and the wreaths which were laid during the service. We then joined a very long queue for the shuttle bus back to Zonne- beke, but had only been queueing for about five minutes, when they decided to bring some coaches to the back entrance of the cemetery; so we turned round and caught the shuttle almost immediately.

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